Where can we find moral education in schools? This question is not that easy to answer. It looks like it is everywhere, but it is not easy to find.
A lot of the research on moral education focuses on the school culture, on interpersonal relationships of teachers and students, and between students. Regarding the role of the teacher, the teacher is presented as a role model; in how the teacher shows values and interacts with the students. What is often missing in research on moral education is full attention for the content of education, the curriculum.
The VaKE approach really addresses values in the curriculum. It is about teaching and learning of values in schools, embedded in the curriculum. It shows how teachers work with values in their concrete educational practices. In more than 10 years the VaKE approach has been developed, implemented, and spread. A strong network of researchers has been working together in all kind of activities. Interesting are the different scientific foundations in the VaKE community: philosophy, psychology, sociology, pedagogy, and educational studies.
I first learned about VaKE in the symposium of the SIG Moral and Democratic Education of the European Association of Learning and Instruction (EARLI) in Greece, in 2008.
And there was a symposium at the EARLI conference in Amsterdam in 2009. VaKE started at the University of Salzburg, in the research group of Jean-Luc Patry, but has now important links with other European countries. In particular Norway, Greece and France. There has always been a strong link between VaKE and the EARLI SIG Moral and Democratic Education; several former SIG coordinators (Patry, Pnevmatikos, Weinberger) are at the heart of the VaKE-movement. It is great that they finish the handbook in the year that the SIG is 25 years old.
Sometimes I was joking: is VaKE vague? This handbook shows how a large group of international researchers work with the concept in different educational settings, with different theoretical perspectives and with different research methods. Central is the focus on a critical engagement with moral values in the curriculum. So, I will say: donât be vague ask for VaKE.
Wiel Veugelers
Series Editor Moral Development and Citizenship Education